American Horror Story - Season 1-75 - Short - Reunion
by leaftheweed
Summary: One-shot revisit to my Murder House AU fic. Not really a new Season. Just a little "what if" involving Constance's fourth child. The one she never speaks about.
1. 1 Brother

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 **1983**

"I am not havin' this conversation with you," Constance said, one hand raised like a shield.

The person she warded with that manicured hand was her eldest son. Despite being albino he was a beautiful example of a young man, something that had been a source of pride for his mother. Now it had become a horrific curse to her.

"Mother," Byron said, trying to be patient. "It's a great opportunity."

"How can you say something like that?!" Constance raged. Hot tears fell from her lashes but she blinked them away furiously as she closed in on her son. She grabbed his strong arms and looked up at him, imploring and accusing at once. "Look at you! You've got everything goin' for you! You don't have to resort to- to trash!"

He sighed and tried to hug her. "People pay big money for this kind of stuff. I can make how I look pay off for me."

"In pornography!" she spat and shoved him away. "That's the best you think you can do? After everything I've sacrificed for you!"

"Oh, stop it, mother!" Byron said, patience exhausted. "You did what you did for your dream. I don't have that dream! I want something real, something that's right in front of me. You spend so much time dreaming your life, you've completely lost touch with what's real! This job, for me, that's real!"

"Real," said Constance, voice cracking on the low growl of a word. "You think you know what real life is like? You don't have a clue!"

"I know a lot more than you think," Byron said loftily. "More than you do. You go around pretending your sham of a marriage is real then you want to lecture me? At least when I sleep around, I'll be getting paid for it. Dad has to pay our maid to get off."

He'd gone too far. He could see it in the hollowed-out way she stared at him. Hugo's infidelity had been a recurring thorn in their family bliss but Byron hadn't intended to bring the latest issue to light in such a cruel way. Regretting it, he reached for her again but she slapped his hand. Just like that, the hurt was gone from her face, replaced with rage.

"Get away from me!" she screamed. "Go do your precious pornography! Turn your whole life into whoring around just like your worthless, son-of-a-bitch father!"

Byron retreated, wounded. He rushed upstairs and stuffed his gym bag with a few clothes and personal things. It wasn't the first time he'd packed a runaway bag but it was the first time Constance didn't stop him. He went to the front door where he paused. Then he opened the door but still she didn't come to stop him. When he left, he slammed the door and he didn't look back.

...

 **2018**

It was well past midnight when the a shadow of a man entered the back yard of Murder House, a large duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He was a tall at 6-foot-4 and had a broad frame. His clothes were so filthy they'd lost distinct color and were varying shades of dark. His hair was an unwashed mess of knotted gray dredlocks; his face was covered with a strange mask of his design. It was a curved piece of metal that had eye slits cut out in it. He'd painted a smile on it in dark red and affixed a cage of spikes over it so the thing had a gruesome, sharp-toothed grin.

After a glance toward the house he crossed the dark yard and checked out the shed. Trying the door, he found it unlocked. Soon he was in the shed. He set the duffel bag down on the floor and shoved a large box in front of the door. Then he unzipped the bag. He turned it over and dumped out the redheaded girl he had inside.

She was nineteen, tied up and gagged, and very afraid. He nudged her with the toe of his mud-crusted jack boot. She whimpered. He chuckled. The sound was muffled by the mask and sounded less human for it. He pulled a large hunting knife out of the sheath on his hip. It was far cleaner than he was, sharp and deadly-looking in the moonlight that filtered through the tiny window.

The redhead saw the knife and squealed in terror. She wriggled fruitlessly. He chuckled again and dropped to one knee beside her. A wide hole in the black denim jeans put a patch of his paper-white skin next to her head. He grabbed her by the curls and yanked her head up. She scrunched her eyes shut, whimpering. Tears of fright slipped out and slid down her freckled cheeks.

He pulled the knife through her hair, close to the scalp. The sharp blade sheared the ginger locks easily. He caught another fistful of her curls and carved that clump off as well. He didn't want to keep it; he dropped it into the old duffel bag without care. Once her head was crudely shaved he turned the knife on her clothes. He sliced them off with practiced ease and swiftness. She whimpered more but the gag was stifling.

Once his victim was naked the man reached into a side pouch on the bag and pulled out some duct tape. He tore off a broad strip and pressed it over her nose, nice and tight, then another over her gagged mouth. He smoothed the tape down firm then dropped the roll back in the bag. Then he sat down beside her to wait.

"That is fucked up," Tate said. He had positioned himself on the box the masked man had shoved in front of the door. He had his elbows propped on his knees and hands folded under his chin. "I think that's probably the most fucked up shit I've seen all week."

The man shifted into a feral crouch and assessed the intruder. Then he slowly got to his feet. He reached for the mask and shoved it up.

"Tate?"

Tate blinked. The man didn't look familiar to him and the teen was pretty sure he'd remember someone so distinctive. The guy was chalk white and had weird pink eyes. He looked like he might be about Dr. Harmon's age. The man smiled, showing deep dimples.

"Tate! It is you! Holy shit. You're not quite as old as I would've thought. You're definitely bigger than the last time I saw you."

Tate stared at him. He was beginning to worry. It was never good when someone recognized him and he didn't recognize them.

The boogieman spread his arms. "It's me, squirt! Byron! I know it's been a while but you can't tell me you've forgotten your big brother."

 **-= AMERiCAN HoRRoR SToRY =-**

x

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Author's Note:

I found this short while I was digging around in my archives and I thought I'd share. I know it sorta reads like a new Season but... it's not. It's just a one-shot AU exploration of what might have happened to Tate's older brother, if he hadn't died at birth in my fic. He's inspired by the actual brother, who was cut to merely a mention or two in post-editing. You can see a pic of him at AmericanHorrorStory-dot-wikia-dot-com. Search for albino1.

I picked the name "Byron" because the show never named him. Since Constance loved poetic names, I named him after the gloomy Lord Byron, who wrote the world's first awesome vampire poem. Wasn't till I was editing this for publication that I recalled the Columbine shooter Ryan Murphy patterned Tate after-Dylan Klebold-also had an older brother named Byron.

Getting back to my Asylum AU now.


	2. 2 Tape

The girl on the floor squirmed. Her experience was singularly strange: She couldn't see the ghost teen, so to her it looked like the man who'd kidnapped her was animatedly talking to himself. The young woman was also running out of air, as the tape effectively stopped her breathing. She whimpered in fear.

If Byron expected a warm reception, he'd come to the wrong place. Tate squinted at the man suspiciously, unsure what to think of him. He knew he didn't want to hug him, though, so he changed the subject. "Why're you killing that girl?"

Byron put his arms down in mild disappointment. He didn't let the rejection bother him long: As soon as he looked down at the shaved girl, he smiled. "I caught 'er at the pier. Gonna skin 'er."

The young woman began to thrash wildly then, squealing in a stuck pig way that made Tate smile inappropriately. He wasn't enjoying the torture. The lady just sounded funny squealing like that. Made it hard for him to take her struggles seriously. She tired quickly, unable to replenish her oxygen supply.

"Why're you going to skin her?" Tate asked, genuinely puzzled by the suggestion.

Byron nudged the young woman with the toe of his work boot. She wriggled again, tiring even faster. "Turn her into a coat. Well. Part of one. I'll need more leather than just her. I already have one skin finished and ready. Brunette. Just need two more: A blonde and a redhead.

Tate noticed the girl's eyes getting drowsy. It crossed his mind that the Harmons preferred living people on the property to remain that way. Violet wouldn't like this, he was sure. He frowned.

"You can't do that here," he said. "If she dies here, her ghost'll get stuck here and we have _way_ too many pissed off dead bitches stuck here already."

Byron ran a hand through his white shock of hair. "Shit. I knew the place had spooks but I didn't know it was a roach motel." He peered at his little brother. "Mom remarried?"

Tate shrugged a shoulder. "She's kinda fucking a priest or something. I don't know. She lives with him. She's dead though. So's Beau. I am too." May as well get it all over with at once, like pulling wisdom teeth.

Byron frowned as he absorbed all of that. "So everyone's stuck here? Where's Addie?"

"She moved to England to go to school but she hooked up with some deadbeat artist and kinda fell off the map." Tate shrugged like it didn't matter to him, but it did. So he transferred those feelings on the sibling in front of him. "Kinda like you, asshole. I mean. What the fuck? Mama said you were dead."

"Maybe I am," Byron grinned, showing unnaturally sharp teeth.

The girl on the floor fluttered her eyelids then she passed out. Tate scowled at her. Byron's comment only made him want to argue all the more but the stupid girl was trying to die. His anger pegged boiling. He bent and ripped the tape off her face. Byron tried to stop him but Tate just let the guy's hands pass right through him. The girl gave a sharp gasp and started to breathe raggedly.

Now Byron was mad too. "What the hell?" he demanded. He took a swipe at Tate, but again, his hand passed through the boy.

"I told you, dickhead," Tate snapped. "I'm DEAD. And I don't want some stupid cunt dying in the shed I like to hang out in. You wanna kill her? Take her to somebody else's house! This is my house!"

"It's our house," Byron asserted, even though he had no idea who currently owned the house. Langdon entitlement to the Montgomery mansion ran deep. In his mind it had never stopped being their house, even when Constance had stopped paying the bills. He ripped more tape off the roll and slapped it over the girl's mouth. He missed her nose, though, and the strip wasn't on real good.

"Go tell Constance that," Tate challenged and ripped the tape off again.

The girl woke up then and started to whimper. Her face was turning red from all the tape ripping.

"Stop it, you little shit!" Byron demanded and applied more tape.

Tate was beginning to tire of the game. "You stop! I don't want to fight you. I just don't wanna live with your dead girl forever because you want a coat! What's so fucking hard to understand about that?"

Byron looked down at the girl then back at the teen ghost. "Fine. Just let me cover her mouth before she starts screaming. I'll take her someplace else in a few hours when traffic's died down."

He put some more duct tape on the girl's mouth but left her nose uncovered. Then he nudged her off to the side, where she wasn't out in the open and easy to see.

"Want to see Constance?" Tate asked then. It was more than a casual question. He was feeling out his brother's attitude toward the woman.

"Sure," said Byron, giving away nothing. "Where is she?"

Tate shrugged. "I'll show you."

...

* * *

Author's Note:

I've had a couple of requests for this so I figured I'd let it play out a little more.


End file.
